Santos in Oaxaca's Ancient Churches

A study of santos in 16th-century and other churches in Oaxaca, Mexico


By Claire and Richard Stracke
Funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation

In Santa María de la Natividad Zaachila:

Christ in a coffin
Immaculate Heart of Mary
Nativity of Mary
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Resurrected Christ
St. Nicholas Factor 1
St. Nicholas Factor 2

Santa María de la Natividad Zaachila
Exterior, Church of Santa Maria de la
                    Natividad, Zaachila
The Villa de Zaachila was an important Zapotec capital at the time of Spanish conquest. Today it has about 14,000 people and is famous for its Thursday market and for pre-Hispanic archeological sites. At the church, our informant was a paid custodian who was not comfortable speaking with us. We begin our tour with El Señor de la Muerte.

Photo by AlejandroLinaresGarcia. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.